Former Habs great Larry Robinson gets promotion with Sharks

Former Canadiens great Larry Robinson has been given a promotion with the San Jose Sharks.

The Hall of Fame defenceman agreed to a new three-year deal with the Sharks on May 21 and becomes the team’s director of player development after being behind the bench as an assistant coach for the past two seasons. Robinson will retain a coaching position, but will spend less time behind the Sharks’ bench and more time working with San Jose’s AHL team in Worcester.

“It’s a great working environment,” Robinson told the San Jose Mercury News about his new role “and through development, I’ll not only be working with the D, I’ll be trying to help everybody get better.”

Robinson, who turns 63 on June 2, said he wanted to cut down on the NHL travel grind. Read more by clicking here.

One of my favourite memories of Robinson playing with the Canadiens was during the 1976 Stanley Cup final when he hit the Philadelphia Flyers’ Gary Dornhoefer so hard that he actually broke the boards at the Forum. Below is a column that I wrote about that hit back in 2007:

(Gazette file photo/David Bier)

Big bird legend born with a hit

PUBLISHED IN THE GAZETTE ON NOV. 18, 2007

STU COWAN
GAZETTE SPORTS EDITOR

“Larry Robinson … never heard of him,” the voice at the other end of the phone said with a loud chuckle.

Gary Dornhoefer could be forgiven if he actually did forget who Larry Robinson is, since his memory might still be a little foggy after the crunching bodycheck the Hall of Fame defenceman hit him with 31 years ago at the Forum.

I was only 13 years old at the time, watching the game on TV, but I still remember it like it happened yesterday. I’ll never forget the sight of a Forum maintenance worker walking onto the ice with a hammer in hand to repair the broken boards.

“I think there’s still an indentation there, ” Dornhoefer said over the phone last week with another chuckle. “It’s the hardest I’ve ever been hit.”

It was Game 2 of the 1976 Stanley Cup final. Dornhoefer, a 6-foot-1, 190-pounder, was racing down the right-wing boards with the puck and had just crossed the Canadiens’ blue line when Robinson, a 6-foot-4 225-pounder, caught him with a hip check, sending the Flyer crashing into the unforgiving Forum boards.

“When you’re skating down the ice with the puck, you have two choices: you can either stop or go straight ahead,” Dornhoefer said. “Obviously, I made the wrong decision. But that’s the way I played, and he caught me pretty good.”

How tough was Dornhoefer?

“I finished the game, but I was spitting blood for about two or three days afterwards,” he recalled.

Broken ribs … internal injury?

“I didn’t even get it checked out,” Dornhoefer said. “After a few days I felt better … I still remembered, but I felt better.”

The Hit came midway through the third period of Game 2, which the Canadiens would win 2-1. Ken Dryden wrote about The Hit in his classic book, The Game.

“We won the first game in Montreal, and were leading midway through the third period of the second, when Gary Dornhoefer, a tall, lean, irritating winger for the Flyers, moved across our blue line,” Dryden wrote. “From his left defence position, Robinson angled over to play him. In most arenas, when struck by colliding bodies, the boards whip obligingly out of shape, absorbing much of the force of the blow before whipping back into position again. Not so in the Forum. Forum boards are solid and punishingly unyielding, or always had been. Driving into Dornhoefer, Robinson hit him so hard that the Flyer’s body dented a section of boards, leaving it an inch or so in back of where it had been just moments before.

“The game was halted, amid an awestruck buzz from the crowd, and for several minutes Forum workmen used hammers and crowbars trying to undo what Robinson had done. But when the boards were banged back in place, the impression remained. He had done it with such crushing ease: no cross-ice leaping, elbowing, high-sticking charge; just simple ‘aw shucks’ destruction, the kind that leaves behind the shuddering hint of something more to come. He had delivered a message – to the Flyers, to the rest of the league, to himself. A series that had been moving our way found its irrevocable direction, and we won in four straight games.”

Dornhoefer calls Robinson “one of the best defencemen I ever played against,” with Bobby Orr being No. 1.

“There was a lot more to Larry’s game than the hits,” added Dornhoefer, who now lives in New Jersey and works as an ambassador for the Flyers. “He was a smart player and had that long reach that was difficult to get around.

“He could go (fight) … I think you respected that,” Dornhoefer continued. “Don’t get on the wrong side of him. But it was just so difficult to get around him because of that long reach. And when the opportunity presented itself, he would throw a bodycheck into you.

“It just seemed he could play a lot of minutes. We felt that along with Dryden, he was the real key to what the Canadiens did behind their blue line.”

The Flyers-Canadiens rivalry was a heated one in the 1970s. While Robinson brought an element of physical intimidation to his game, Dornhoefer said the Flyers were more afraid of the Canadiens’ speed.

“The Flyers, we (intimidated) with hard hitting and tried to finish our checks,” Dornhoefer said. “The Canadiens did it with speed. There were various intimidation factors that you could use and Montreal was probably the best skating team in the league. Going into the Montreal Forum and watching the Canadiens practise was probably intimidating because of the way they could skate. We would have been better off not watching them practise.”

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